Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XIV.—Valentinus and his followers derived the principles of their system from the heathen; the names only are changed. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XIV.—Valentinus and his
followers derived the principles of their system from the heathen; the names
only are changed.
1. Much
more like the truth, and more pleasing, is the account which
Antiphanes,3051
3051 Nothing is
known of this writer. Several of the same name are mentioned by the
ancients, but to none of them is a work named Theogonia ascribed.
He is supposed to be the same poet as is cited by Athenæus, but that
writer quotes from a work styled ᾽Αφροδίτης γοναι. | one
of the ancient comic poets, gives in his Theogony as to the origin
of all things. For he speaks Chaos as being produced from Night and
Silence; relates that then Love3052
3052 The Latin is “Cupidinem;” and Harvey here
refers to Aristotle, who “quotes the authority of Hesiod and
Parmenides as saying that Love is the eternal intellect, reducing Chaos
into order.” | sprang from Chaos and Night; from this
again, Light; and that from this, in his opinion, were derived all the
rest of the first generation of the gods. After these he next introduces
a second generation of gods, and the creation of the world; then he
narrates the formation of mankind by the second order of the gods. These
men (the heretics), adopting this fable as their own, have ranged their
opinions round it, as if by a sort of natural process, changing only the
names of the things referred to, and setting forth the very same
beginning of the generation of all things, and their production. In place
of Night and Silence they substitute Bythus and Sige; instead of Chaos,
they put Nous; and for Love (by whom, says the comic poet, all other
things were set in order) they have brought forward the Word; while for
the primary and greatest gods they have formed the Æons; and in place of
the secondary gods, they tell us of that creation by their mother which
is outside of the Pleroma, calling it the second Ogdoad. They proclaim to
us, like the writer referred to, that from this (Ogdoad) came the
creation of the world and the formation of man, maintaining that they
alone are acquainted with these ineffable and unknown mysteries. Those
things which are everywhere acted in the theatres by comedians with the
clearest voices they transfer to their own system, teaching them
undoubtedly through means of the same arguments, and merely changing the
names.
2. And not only are they convicted of bringing forward,
as if their own [original ideas], those things which are to be found
among the comic poets, but they also bring together the things which have
been said by all those who were ignorant of God, and who are termed
philosophers; and sewing together, as it were, a motley garment out of a
heap of miserable rags, they have, by their subtle manner of expression,
furnished themselves with a cloak which is really not their own. They do,
it is true, introduce a new kind of doctrine, inasmuch as by a new sort
of art it has been substituted [for the old]. Yet it is in reality both
old and useless, since these very opinions have been sewed together out
of ancient dogmas redolent of ignorance and irreligion. For instance,
Thales3053
3053 Compare, on the
opinions of the philosophers referred to in this chapter, Hippolytus,
Philosoph., book i. | of Miletus affirmed that water was
the generative and initial principle of all things. Now it is just the
same thing whether we say water or Bythus. The poet
Homer,3054
3054 Iliad, xiv.
201; vii. 99. | again, held the opinion that Oceanus, along
with mother Tethys, was the origin of the gods: this idea these men have
transferred to Bythus and Sige. Anaximander laid it down that infinitude is the
first principle of all things, having seminally in itself the generation
of them all, and from this he declares the immense worlds [which exist]
were formed: this, too, they have dressed up anew, and referred to Bythus
and their Æons. Anaxagoras, again, who has
also been surnamed “Atheist,” gave it as his opinion that
animals were formed from seeds falling down from heaven upon earth. This
thought, too, these men have transferred to “the seed” of
their Mother, which they maintain to be themselves; thus acknowledging at
once, in the judgment of such as are possessed of sense, that they
themselves are the offspring of the irreligious Anaxagoras.
3. Again, adopting the [ideas of] shade and vacuity
from Democritus and Epicurus, they have
fitted these to
their own views, following upon those [teachers] who had already talked a
great deal about a vacuum and atoms, the one of which they called that
which is, and the other that which is not. In like manner,
these men call those things which are within the Pleroma real existences,
just as those philosophers did the atoms; while they maintain that those
which are without the Pleroma have no true existence, even as those did
respecting the vacuum. They have thus banished themselves in this world
(since they are here outside of the Pleroma) into a place which has no
existence. Again, when they maintain that these things [below] are images
of those which have a true existence [above], they again most manifestly
rehearse the doctrine of Democritus and Plato. For Democritus was the
first who maintained that numerous and diverse figures were stamped, as
it were, with the forms [of things above], and descended from universal
space into this world. But Plato, for his part, speaks of matter, and
exemplar,3055
3055 The Latin has
here exemplum, corresponding doubtless to παράδειγμα, and
referring to those ἰδέαι of all
things which Plato supposed to have existed for ever in the divine
mind. | and God. These men, following those distinctions, have
styled what he calls ideas, and exemplar, the images of those
things which are above; while, through a mere change of name, they boast
themselves as being discoverers and contrivers of this kind of imaginary
fiction.
4. This opinion, too, that they hold the Creator formed
the world out of previously existing matter, both Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
and Plato expressed before them; as, forsooth, we learn they also do
under the inspiration of their Mother. Then again, as to the opinion that
everything of necessity passes away to those things out of which they
maintain it was also formed, and that God is the slave of this necessity,
so that He cannot impart immortality to what is mortal, or bestow
incorruption on what is corruptible, but every one passes into a
substance similar in nature to itself, both those who are named Stoics
from the portico (στοὰ), and indeed
all that are ignorant of God, poets and historians alike, make the same
affirmation.3056
3056 [Our
author’s demonstration of the essential harmony of Gnosticism with
the old mythologies, and the philosophies of the heathen, explains the
hold it seems to have gained among nominal converts to Christianity, and
also the necessity for a painstaking refutation of what seem to us mere
absurdities. The great merit of Irenæus is thus illustrated: he gave the
death-blow to heathenism in extirpating heresy.] | Those
[heretics] who hold the same [system of] infidelity have ascribed, no
doubt, their own proper region to spiritual beings,—that, namely,
which is within the Pleroma, but to animal beings the intermediate space,
while to corporeal they assign that which is material. And they assert
that God Himself can do no otherwise, but that every one of the
[different kinds of substance] mentioned passes away to those things
which are of the same nature [with itself].
5. Moreover, as to their saying that the Saviour was
formed out of all the Æons, by every one of them depositing, so to
speak, in Him his own special flower, they bring forward nothing new that
may not be found in the Pandora of Hesiod. For what he says respecting
her, these men insinuate concerning the Saviour, bringing Him before us
as Pandoros (All-gifted), as if each of the Æons had bestowed on Him
what He possessed in the greatest perfection. Again, their opinion as to
the indifference of [eating of] meats and other actions, and as to their
thinking that, from the nobility of their nature, they can in no degree
at all contract pollution, whatever they eat or perform, they have
derived it from the Cynics, since they do in fact belong to the same
society as do these [philosophers]. They also strive to transfer to [the
treatment of matters of] faith that hairsplitting and subtle mode of
handling questions which is, in fact, a copying of Aristotle.
6. Again, as to the desire
they exhibit to refer this whole universe to numbers, they have learned
it from the Pythagoreans. For these were the first who set forth numbers
as the initial principle of all things, and [described] that initial
principle of theirs as being both equal and unequal, out of which [two
properties] they conceived that both things sensible3057
3057 The Latin text reads “sensibilia et
insensata;” but these words, as Harvey observes, must be the
translation of αἰσθητὰ καὶ ἀναίσθητα,
—“the former referring to material objects of sense, the
latter to the immaterial world of intellect.” | and
immaterial derived their origin. And [they held] that one set of first
principles3058
3058 This clause is
very obscure, and we are not sure if the above rendering brings out the
real meaning of the author. Harvey takes a different view of it, and
supposes the original Greek to have been, καὶ ἄλλας μὲν τῆς ὑποστάσεως
ἀρχὰς
εἶναι ἄλλας δὲ τῆς αἰσθήσεως καὶ τῆς οὐσίας. He then
remarks: “The reader will observe that the word ὑπόστασις here means
intellectual substance, οὐσία material;
as in V. c. ult. The meaning therefore of the sentence will be,
And they affirmed that the first principles of intellectual substance
and of sensible and material existence were diverse, viz., unity was
the exponent of the first, duality of the second.” | gave
rise to the matter [of things], and another to their form. They affirm
that from these first principles all things have been made, just as a
statue is of its metal and its special form. Now, the heretics have
adapted this to the things which are outside of the Pleroma. The
[Pythagoreans] maintained that the3059
3059 All the editors confess the above sentence hopelessly
obscure. We have given Harvey’s conjectural translation.
| principle of intellect is proportionate to the energy wherewith
mind, as a recipient of the comprehensible, pursues its inquiries, until,
worn out, it is resolved at length in the Indivisible and One. They
further affirm that Hen—that is, One—is the first
principle of all things, and the substance of all that has been formed.
From this again proceeded the Dyad, the Tetrad, the Pentad, and the
manifold generation of the others. These things the heretics repeat, word
for word, with a reference to their Pleroma and Bythus.
From
the same source, too, they strive to bring into vogue those conjunctions
which proceed from unity. Marcus boasts of such views as if they were his
own, and as if he were seen to have discovered something more novel than
others, while he simply sets forth the Tetrad of Pythagoras as the
originating principle and mother of all things.
7. But I will merely say, in opposition to these men
—Did all those who have been mentioned, with whom you have been
proved to coincide in expression, know, or not know, the truth? If they
knew it, then the descent of the Saviour into this world was superfluous.
For why [in that case] did He descend? Was it that He might bring that
truth which was [already] known to the knowledge of those who knew it?
If, on the other hand, these men did not know it, then how is it
that, while you express yourselves in the same terms as do those who knew
not the truth, ye boast that yourselves alone possess that knowledge
which is above all things, although they who are ignorant of God
[likewise] possess it? Thus, then, by a complete perversion3060
3060 Literally,
“antiphrasis.” | of language, they style ignorance
of the truth knowledge: and Paul well says [of them,] that [they make use
of] “novelties of words of false knowledge.”3061
3061 1 Tim. vi. 20. The
text is, “Vocum novitates falsæ agnitionis,” καινοφωνίας having
apparently been read in the Greek instead of κενοφωνίας
as in Text. Rec. | For that knowledge of theirs is truly found
to be false. If, however, taking an impudent course with respect to these
points, they declare that men indeed did not know the truth, but that
their Mother,3062
3062 Grabe and
others insert “vel” between these words. | the seed
of the Father, proclaimed the mysteries of truth through such men, even
as also through the prophets, while the Demiurge was ignorant [of the
proceeding], then I answer, in the first place, that the things which
were predicted were not of such a nature as to be intelligible to no one;
for the men themselves knew what they were saying, as did also their
disciples, and those again succeeded these. And, in the next place, if
either the Mother or her seed knew and proclaimed those things which were
of the truth (and the Father3063
3063 It seems necessary to regard these words as
parenthetical, though the point is overlooked by all the editors.
| is truth), then on their theory the Saviour spoke falsely when He
said, “No one knoweth the Father but the Son,”3064 unless indeed they maintain that their seed or
Mother is No-one.
8. Thus far, then, by means of [ascribing to their
Æons] human feelings, and by the fact that they largely coincide in
their language with many of those who are ignorant of God, they have been
seen plausibly drawing a certain number away [from the truth]. They lead
them on by the use of those [expressions] with which they have been
familiar, to that sort of discourse which treats of all things, setting
forth the production of the Word of God, and of Zoe, and of Nous, and
bringing into the world, as it were, the [successive] emanations of the
Deity. The views, again, which they propound, without either plausibility
or parade, are simply lies from beginning to end. Just as those who, in
order to lure and capture any kind of animals, place their accustomed
food before them, gradually drawing them on by means of the familiar
aliment, until at length they seize it, but, when they have taken them
captive, they subject them to the bitterest of bondage, and drag them
along with violence whithersoever they please; so also do these men
gradually and gently persuading [others], by means of their plausible
speeches, to accept of the emission which has been mentioned, then bring
forward things which are not consistent, and forms of the remaining
emissions which are not such as might have been expected. They declare,
for instance, that [ten]3065 Æons were sent
forth by Logos and Zoe, while from Anthropos and Ecclesia there proceeded
twelve, although they have neither proof, nor testimony, nor probability,
nor anything whatever of such a nature [to support these assertions]; and
with equal folly and audacity do they wish it to be believed that from
Logos and Zoe, being Æons, were sent forth Bythus and Mixis, Ageratos
and Henosis, Autophyes and Hedone, Acinetos and Syncrasis, Monogenes and
Macaria. Moreover, [as they affirm,] there were sent forth, in a similar
way, from Anthropos and Ecclesia, being Æons, Paracletus and Pistis,
Patricos and Elpis, Metricos and Agape, Ainos and Synesis, Ecclesiasticus
and Macariotes, Theletos and Sophia.
9. The passions and error of this Sophia, and how she
ran the risk of perishing through her investigation [of the nature] of
the Father, as they relate, and what took place outside of the Pleroma,
and from what sort of a defect they teach that the Maker of the world was
produced, I have set forth in the preceding book, describing in it, with
all diligence, the opinions of these heretics. [I have also detailed
their views] respecting Christ, whom they describe as having been
produced subsequently to all these, and also regarding Soter, who,
[according to them,] derived his being from those Æons who were formed
within the Pleroma.3066
3066 The
text has “qui in labe facti sunt;” but, according to Harvey,
“the sense requires πληρώματι instead of
ἐκτρώματι in the
original.” | But I have of necessity mentioned their
names at present, that from these the absurdity of their falsehood may be
made manifest, and also the confused nature of the nomenclature they have
devised. For
they themselves detract from [the dignity of]
their Æons by a multitude of names of this sort. They give out names
plausible and credible to the heathen, [as being similar] to those who
are called their twelve gods,3067
3067 Viz., the “Dii majorum gentium” of the
Gentiles. | and even these they will have to be images of their
twelve Æons. But the images [so called] can produce names [of their own]
much more seemly, and more powerful through their etymology to indicate
divinity [than are those of their fancied prototypes].E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|